


The Last Temptation of Eve

by seekingferret



Category: The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter (Song)
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, Post-Apocalyptic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It beats listening to the static on the radioset.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Temptation of Eve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragoJustine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragoJustine/gifts).



"I'm glad you brought the radio with you, Marie," she says.

I smile. She hasn't brought anything with her, just the Versace suit she wore on her body. Hot shot city girl lawyer trapped in small-town California missile silo by the apocalypse. It's like something out of a movie. In the radiation suit she covers her body with now, we are all the same.

It's my father's radio, hand crankable and guaranteed to last through a nuclear blast, he'd told me when he gave it to me for Christmas three years ago, just a month after I'd been assigned to the silo. My father's jokes always surprised me, even though I have the same sense of humor. Now, I cannot reach my father through the radiation saturated airwaves. He must be dead.

I was trained for this situation. I certainly have more training than the twenty minute safety lecture she got. I don't know what to do. When they designed the fallout shelters, what did they think they would do? My training never told me how to decide it's safe to go out. We could be trapped here forever.

So I pull out my father's radio and start cranking. My muscles strain with the exertion and I feel the numbness fade away. After ten minutes, I turn the radio on to the crackling static that I expected to hear.

"Oh," she says, clearly disappointed. I shrug and set the radio aside.

"I have crosswords," I say, knowing it's not good enough for her. She starts pacing the room anxiously as I sit down with my book of crosswords and a pencil to start on a problem that I can solve.

A half hour disappears before I know it and the first puzzle is nearly finished. In consternation, I mutter to myself, "What five letters spell apocalypse," and she surprises me with her rejoinder. "W W I I I." Five crisp letters, precisely delivered in the same voice she must use in the courtroom. I hastily scribble the letters in and pronounce myself done, but she wants to do another one. Together.

It beats listening to the static on the radioset.

She's better than me at crosswords. She doesn't know more words, but she makes the connections faster. The only way to make it fair is if I do the writing, to slow her down. It's the only way to make the puzzles last longer. We savor them together.

As we run low on puzzles, I start finding other outlets for my energy. I start cleaning the silo the way I was trained to, making sure the missiles remain operational, rewelding joints. I know it's silly. I know that we've passed the point of no return. The United States is not going to need my missiles. But I have to keep busy.

Eventually, even that novelty wears out and we start sleeping together. Obviously, we're not going to be repopulating the world together, but feeling her breast brush against mine makes it feel like new worlds are being born. I haven't touched anyone but her in thirty three days. Her tongue feels like a hydrogen bomb exploding on my skin.

It would have never worked outside. She's too ambitious. I'm too introspective. And I don't think I'd be her type. She doesn't like my legs very much. For here, for the moment, it's perfect. My father always told me to live for the moment, but I don't think he meant this one. Still, with the sex and the intimacy, life has gone from survivable to enjoyable. We are survivors, but we no longer define ourselves by our survival. We cuddle together, and I dream of stretching ourselves out in Paris or Tokyo or Los Angeles. All destroyed.

Every few days, I crank the radio up again and listen for a signal. She smiles each time and admires me again for remembering to bring the radio, but it never brings us anything but static. I watch her face go from hopeful to disappointed and I ache for her. She should have never ended up here with me.

She asks me if the missiles still work and I, surprised, stop and think about it. Their maintenance has become an unthinking rote, but I am a professional, even if I'm no longer paid. We do an inspection together, using the checklist that the designers thoughtfully left in the silo. It's an opportunity to see her bent over, to stand over her shoulder and explain how something works, to watch her tall, lanky body stretched out to reach the ductwork. Everything still works perfectly. I am a professional.

The radiation levels outside the silo are still dangerously high, the sensors tell us. We have no idea when they will go down. The landscape must be dotted with heavy metals, byproducts of the cataclysmic war.

I remark on this and she tells me that she misses heavy metal. When she was in college, she used to see Iron Maiden shows all the time. It figures. I suggest she try singing her favorites to pass the time, but it turns out that without the crashing guitars, she has nothing. I start singing my favorite songs while I work, folk tunes and worksongs my father taught me to sing when I was young. And some newer songs I still love. It brightens our days.

But I'm not perfect. I make a mistake, sing a song I shouldn't have. A haunting folksong from Josh Ritter, a song which is eerily appropriate for our lives.

Its nasty, haunting chorus rings in our ears for days afterward.

"He didn't make heaven. He didn't make Harrisburg. He died in a hole in between."

I hold Eve in my arms and we pray together, wondering what our end will be. Eve, always the ambitious one, wants to take control of her situation, but I bring her close and whisper my love into her ear and hope that nothing will ever pull us apart.


End file.
